National Statement
For immediate release
October 18, 2011

With the Philippines now rising as Toronto’s No. 1 source of immigrants, as recently reported in the National Post’s “Ten ways to nurture ‘the soul of our city,’” the Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians (CPFC) recognizes the significance of this number beyond sheer quantitative measure – that the presence of over 250,000 transnational Filipino Canadians in the heart of Canada’s economic engine has been driven by the full-scale expansion of the neoliberal agenda of globalization. As our entry into Toronto is facilitated by neoliberal labour and immigration policies that stamp and seal our admissibility under the pretext of becoming sources of cheap and disposable labour, our growing community is immediately denied their full participation in Canadian society despite upholding the bare bones of the economy. To get to the heart of “tackling Toronto’s complex quality of life issues” is to genuinely address the growing Filipino Canadian community’s needs of settlement and integration towards their full participation and entitlement as necessary in truly nurturing “the soul of our city.”

It is no mere statistical anomaly or historical happenstance that the Philippines has now become Toronto’s No. 1 source of immigrants. We must acknowledge that the increasing rates of Filipino migration into Canada operate far beyond an individual’s choice to settle in another country. Instead, the massive influx of transnational Filipinos into Toronto must be understood as a concerted effort by Canada’s neoliberal agenda to drive more and more workers out of their countries to circulate the global labour market as a pool of cheap labour.

Just as Canada opens its doors to admit thousands of new immigrants as permanent residents and temporary workers, they are subsequently prevented from genuinely settling and integrating into their new home as they are at once “pigeonholed in jobs as caregivers” and casualized, low-wage service sector jobs. As such, we are hard-hit by the impacts of deskilling as our years of professional training and education are rendered unusable and corroded away by years of repetitive and backbreaking work. If we are to truly settle and integrate into Canadian society, it will not be achieved by performing the dirtiest, dangerous and most difficult jobs that no other Canadians would take, for wages below minimum wage in some cases and under conditions that are akin to modern-day slavery. Whereby the development and full participation of an entire community is impinged upon by their immigration status or by occupational segregation, the possibilities of genuinely “nurturing the soul of the city” cannot be fully realized.

The lure of Toronto as Canada’s top destination for immigrants, often applauded for its multiculturalism and diversity, cannot simply be taken for granted as a marker of world-status as its economic life highly depends on the cyclical importation of cheap labour from the Global South and the continued exploitation of its workers. It is no surprise that this insistence towards temporary migration is occurring alongside the ongoing privatization of public services. The unabated implementation of the Conservative government’s neoliberal agenda will only serve to drive us further away from truly “nurturing the soul of the city” as it continues to marginalize our communities and prevent our full participation and entitlement in Canadian society.

Our contributions to Canadian society extend far beyond our capacities as mere appendages to the economy. As over five decades of struggling for our genuine settlement and integration in Canadian society has demonstrated, there is much more at stake in nurturing Toronto’s true potential than what can be provided by exclusionary immigration policies that operate solely for the sake of global competitiveness. It cannot simply be said that “the world needs Toronto to succeed,” as the article points out, but also that “Toronto needs the world to succeed” as well. For our city and for Canadian society to truly thrive, we must take root in our new home by continuing to strive for our just and genuine settlement and integration.

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Organizations under the CPFC:
National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC)
SIKLAB-Canada (Advance and Uphold the Struggle of Filipino Canadian Workers)
Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada/Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance – National
Sinag Bayan Arts Collective – National
Philippines-Canada Task Force on Human Rights (PCTFHR)

For more information:
Joy C. Sioson
(416) 519-2553
pwc-on@magkaisacentre.org
www.magkaisacentre.org